Palo Alto neighborhood · 24/7
Professorville locksmith work on 1890s to 1920s doors that still carry the plate, the knob and the keyhole they were hung with
The historic district south of downtown between Addison and Kingsley: shingled and Craftsman houses from the 1890s through the 1920s, deep porches, front doors with a glass light and a bronze mortise set, houses divided into two or three units, and rules about what may change on a street-facing door.
18 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Professorville is eighteen minutes from Midtown and is the reason the van carries a box of odd spindles and mortise springs. A front door here has a mortise case in its edge, a plate with a knob, a keyhole for a bit key and a thumb turn, and above it a rim latch that an earlier owner screwed on when the bit key stopped being trusted. The rim cylinder is what a pocket key opens, and it is rekeyed at $27 to $45. The mortise set is left alone. A knob that wobbles is a worn spindle and a set screw, replaced without lifting the plate; a latch that no longer springs back is a spring in the case, which comes out through the edge, is cleaned and goes back. Only a case split at the bolt is replaced, with a new case fitted behind the original plate at $125 to $329, and from the porch the door looks as it did in 1915.
Many of these houses are divided, with a shared porch door and unit doors at the top of a stair. Landlords rekey between tenants at $27 to $45 per cylinder, and the porch door is pinned so every tenant's key opens it and none opens a neighbor's unit. A lockout at a unit door is $129 to $219 and is picked, because a drilled hole in a 1905 slab cannot be undone. Proof of tenancy is asked for at the door. Houses on the historic inventory have rules about the street face, and a rekey changes nothing the street can see; a keypad on the front is not offered, and a smart lock, where one is wanted, goes on the kitchen door at $189 to $479.
The blocks are short, the trees are large and parking is what it is; the van stops where it can and the case goes up the porch steps. What is never done here is guessing at a door. Where a part from 1910 is no longer made, the technician says so with the plate off and names what can be done with what is there, at the figure already said on the call. Evening calls carry $55 between 8pm and midnight and $90 overnight inside that figure.
Say whether the front door still has its keyhole plate and whether a rim latch sits above the knob on the inside. If the house is divided, say which door is yours and whether the porch door is shared; that decides how the cylinders are pinned.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
What people ask before they call
How long until the van reaches my part of Palo Alto?+
Twenty-two minutes is the average across the city, because the van is based in Midtown and Palo Alto is compact. Midtown itself sees the van in about 14 minutes, Old Palo Alto in 16, Professorville and Stanford in 18, Downtown and the Eichler tracts of South Palo Alto in 22, Crescent Park in 22, College Terrace and East Palo Alto in 23, Barron Park and Menlo Park in 25. Los Altos runs about 27 and Mountain View about 29, and Palo Alto Hills takes longer than any of them because of Page Mill Road. The window in your text comes from where the van is at that moment, not from the average.
Will the lock be drilled?+
Only when the mechanism leaves no other way, and only after you agree. Residential deadbolts, apartment cylinders, the mortise sets in Professorville and Old Palo Alto, aluminum storefront hardware, and most car doors and safes open by picking, decoding, manipulation or bypass, and go on working afterward. Drilling becomes the question when a cylinder is high-security, already damaged, or seized by a snapped key. In that case the technician explains what the lock is doing, names the replacement part and its grade, and the figure stays where it was said on the call.
What does the figure on the call include, and what could move it?+
The $89 service call, the labor, the parts fitted and any evening or overnight hour, as one figure said on the call. A side gate, a long driveway, a garage level or a building lobby does not change it. The only thing that adds to it is a second job you ask for after the technician arrives, such as rekeying the back door once the front door has been opened. That is quoted as its own figure and started only when you say yes.
Is it more after 8pm, on a weekend or on a holiday?+
Weekends and holidays are charged at daytime figures. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55, and between midnight and 7am adds $90. Both are already inside the figure said on the call. A house lockout that would be $129 during the day is said as $184 in the evening and $219 overnight, and that is the figure on the receipt.
Can a housekeeper, a property manager or a landlord act for the owner?+
Yes, with confirmation. For a house or an apartment: photo ID with the address, or ID plus a lease, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone. For a car: ID plus the registration or an insurance card, digital is fine. For a shop, an office or a lab: ID plus a lease, a business license, or confirmation from the property manager or the company. A housekeeper or a property manager holding keys on the owner's behalf may authorize the work if the owner confirms by text or email, or if the manager's name appears on the lease or the management agreement. The receipt can be addressed to the owner, the manager or both. Without one of those the door stays closed.
Our Professorville house still has its original hardware. Does it have to come out?+
Almost never. The mortise sets on the houses south of downtown were built to be taken apart, cleaned and put back. The case comes out of its pocket, the springs are replaced, the levers re-tensioned, and the cylinder rekeyed so old keys stop working, while the brass plate and the glass knob stay on the door. A latch that no longer catches is usually a worn strike, not a failed lock. If the case is beyond repair, a new mortise body is sized to the pocket already cut, so nothing new is cut into the door. Describe the door on the call and the figure is said for the likely route.
Our Eichler has a sliding glass door and an atrium door. What can be done with them?+
Quite a lot. The sliding doors on the tracts in Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow and Green Gables take a proper keyed lock or a secondary foot bolt without any change to the glass or the track, and the atrium doors take a standard deadbolt bore if they do not have one already. The van carries the sliding-door locks and the narrow-stile hardware those doors need. The technician measures the stile and the track before naming the part, and the glass is not touched.
Do you come to the Stanford Shopping Center lots, the Caltrain lots and Town & Country?+
Yes. Car lockouts, key cutting and fob programming are done in the Stanford Shopping Center lots, the Caltrain lots along Alma Street, Town & Country Village, the garages downtown and the lots at Stanford Hospital. Say which lot and roughly where the car is. For a gated garage under an apartment building, have someone ready to let the van in. The Shopping Center on a Saturday afternoon is honestly slower, and the window in your text will say so. The figure does not change for any of it.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure, and the lock kept whole
Calls answered 24/7 across Palo Alto, Stanford and the towns beside them. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the figure said on the call, the lock is opened without drilling wherever it allows, and the receipt repeats the figure.